32 Automation courses in Hoddesdon

OVERVIEW -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Effective way of introducing automation to your project * Selecting the best and right automation tool * Analysing which test cases need to be automated * Effective way of planning, designing and development * Benefits of Automation Testing * Developing scripts effectively * Effectively executing and maintaining test scripts * Best practices required to follow for successful automation testing * Methods of using the tools to control the execution of the tests * Comparing the expected outcomes with the actual outcomes * Analysing regression test cases and Load testing scenarios * Automating difficult tasks and repetitive tasks * How to run scripts quickly and repeatedly

NETWORK AUTOMATION TRAINING COURSE DESCRIPTION This course concentrates on the technical side of tools and languages for network DevOps rather than the soft skills. These tools include Python, Ansible, Git and NAPALM By the end of the course delegates should be able to recognise the tools that they can use to automate their networks and be able to use the knowledge gained to feel confident approaching network automation. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Describe network DevOps. * Choose network automation tools. * Explain the role of various network automation technologies including: Python Ansible Git NAPALM NETWORK AUTOMATION TRAINING COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: Those wishing to learn about the tools of network automation. * Prerequisites: Introduction to data communications. * Duration 1 day NETWORK AUTOMATION TRAINING COURSE CONTENTS * What is DevOps and network automation Programming and automating networks, networks and clouds, AWS, OpenStack, SDN, DevOps for network operations. Unit testing. Hype vs reality. Benefits and features. * Network monitoring and troubleshooting Traditional methods, SNMP. Netflow and xflow. Traditional automation. Streaming telemetry. Event driven automation. gRPC, Protocol buffers. * Configuration management Catch 22 and initial configuration. ZTP, POAP. Traditional automation. TFTP. Ansible vs the rest (chef, salt, puppet). Jinja2 and templating. How ansible works. * Network programmability Programming languages. Linux, shell scripting. Python vs the rest. Off box vs on box automation. * Python network libraries Sockets pysnmp, ncclient, paramiko, netmiko, pyez, NAPALM. * APIs Proprietary APIs, CLI, NETCONF, RETCONF. YANG, XML, YAML, JSON. * Other tools Git, GitHub, Jenkins, JIRA and others.

NETWORK AUTOMATION COURSE DESCRIPTION This course is not a soft skills course covering the concepts of DevOps but instead concentrates on the technical side of tools and languages for network DevOps. Particular technologies focussed on are ansible, git and Python enabling delegates to leave the course ready to starting automating their network. Hands on sessions follow all major sections. More detailed courses on individual aspects of this course are available. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Evaluate network automation tools. * Automate tasks with ansible. * Use git for version control. * Use Python to manage network devices. * Use Python libraries for network devices. NETWORK AUTOMATION COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: Network engineers. * Prerequisites: TCP/IP foundation for engineers. * Duration 5 days NETWORK AUTOMATION COURSE CONTENTS * What is DevOps Programming and automating networks, networks and clouds, AWS, OpenStack, SDN, DevOps for network operations. * Initial configuration Configuring SSH, ZTP, POAP. Hands on Initial lab configuration. * Getting started with ansible The language, the engine, the framework. Uses of ansible, orchestration. The architecture, Controlling machines, nodes, Agentless, SSH, modules. Configuration management, inventories, playbooks, modules, roles. Hands on Installing ansible, running ad hoc commands. * Ansible playbooks ansible-playbook, YAML, plays, tasks, handlers, modules. Playbook variables. Register module, debug module. Hands on Running playbooks. * Ansible Inventories /etc/ansible/hosts, hosts, groups, static inventories, dynamic inventories. Inventory variables, external variables. Limiting hosts. Hands on Static inventories, variables in inventory files. * Ansible modules for networking Built in modules, custom modules, return values. Core modules for network operations. Cisco and/ or Juniper modules. ansible_connection. Ansible 2.6 CLI. Hands on Using modules. * Ansible templating and roles Configuration management, full configurations, partial configurations. The template module, the assemble module, connection: local, Jinja2 templates, variables, if, for, roles. Hands on Generating multiple configurations from a template. * Network programming and modules Why use Python? Why use ansible? alternatives, ansible tower, Linux network devices. * Programming with Python Scripting versus application development, Python interactive mode, Python scripts, Python 2.7 vs Python 3. A simple Python script. Variables, loops, control statements, operators. PEP style guide. Python IDEs. Hands on Simple Python programs. * More Python programming Functions. Classes, objects and instances, modules, libraries, packages. Python strings, Python file handling, pip list, pip install, Hands on Python programming with pyping. * Git Distributed version control, repositories, Git and GitHub, Alternatives to GitHub, Installing git, git workflows, creating repositories, adding and editing files, branching and merging, merge conflicts. Hands on working with Git. * Python and networking APIs, Sockets, Telnetlib, pysnmp, ncclient, ciscoconfparse. * Paramiko SSH and Netmiko Integrating Python and network devices using SSH. Netmiko, Netmiko methods. Hands on Netmiko. * PyEZ Juniper, NETCONF, installing PyEZ, a first pyEZ script, pyEZ configuration management. Hands on Juniper configuration management with pyEZ. * NAPALM What is NAPALM, NAPALM operations, getters, Replace, merge, compare, commit, discard. Hands on Configuration with NAPALM. Integrating ansible and NAPALM. * Python and REST REST APIs, enabling the REST API. Accessing the REST API with a browser, cURL, Python and REST, the request library. Hands on Using a REST API with network devices.

PYTHON TRAINING COURSE DESCRIPTION This Python course focusses on teaching Python for use in network automation and network DevOps. We focus on getting delegates up and running with Python and network automation as quickly as possible rather than making them great programmers. In other words we concentrate on enabling delegates to use network automation libraries such as netmiko, NAPALM and Nornir, and APIs such as NETCONF and RESTCONF rather than enabling delegates to produce object oriented programs. Hands on sessions use Cisco and Juniper devices. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Run Python programs. * Read Python programs. * Write Python programs. * Debug Python programs. * Automate network tasks with Python programs. * Configure network devices with Python. * Collect data from network devices with Python. PYTHON TRAINING COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: Network engineers. * Prerequisites: TCP/IP Foundation * Duration 5 days PYTHON TRAINING COURSE CONTENTS * What is Python? Programming languages, Why Python? Python in interactive mode, Python scripts, ipython, Python version 2 versus version 3. A simple Python script. Comments. Hands on Installing Python, Hello world. * A network example On box vs off box Python. telnet, ssh, NETCONF, HTTP, APIs, manufacturers and API support, analysis of a simple telnetlib program. Hands on Using Python to retrieve the configuration from a network device. Using wireshark to analyse the actions. * Python basics I/O, operators, variables and assignment, types, indentation, loops and conditionals. Hands on Modifying the telnet program, changing configurations on a network devices. * Functions, classes and methods What are functions, calling functions, builtin functions, useful builtin functions, file handling, classes, objects, creating instances. Hands on Storing configurations in files, configuring devices from files, using an inventory file to work on multiple devices. * Libraries and modules Modules, files and packages, import, from-import, Python standard library, other packages, pip install, executing other programs. Managing python libraries. Hands on Using pip, installing and using ipaddress, subprocess to access netsnmp. For the more advanced, using the sockets library. * Paramiko and netmiko SSH, enabling SSH on devices, keys. Paramiko versus netmiko, example scripts. pexpect. Hands on Configuring VLANs from Python. * pySNMP Gathering facts using previous methods, SNMP review, pySNMP GET, pySNMP and SNMPv3. easySNMP library. Hands on Walking a MIB from Python. * NETCONF What is NETCONF? Enabling NETCONF on devices, A first ncclient script, device handlers, get_config, edit_config, copy_config, delete_config, commit, validate, pyEZ, utils_config, utils.sw. Hands on Configuration using ncclient and PyEZ. This session is expanded for those interesting in JunOS automation. * Manipulating configuration files Builtin functions, string handling. Unicode. Sequences, strings, lists, tuples. Dictionaries. TextFSM. Regular expressions. JSON, YAML, XML, YANG, Jinja2, templates. Hands on Jinja2 templating with Python to configure network devices. * NAPALM Getters, configuration operations, supported devices, NAPALM transport, Config-replace, Config-merge, Compare config, Atomic changes, rollback. Example NAPLAM scripts. Hands on Using NAPALM to gather facts, Using NAPALM for configuration management * REST and RESTCONF What is REST, HTTP methods, GET, POST, cURL, Postman, Python requests library. RESTCONF, a RESTCONF example. Hands on Modifying a configuration using RESTCONF. * Scapy What is scapy, Scapy in interactive mode, Scapy as a module. Hands on Packet crafting from Python. * Warning Errors and exceptions, Exception handling, try, except. Memory management. Garbage collection. Context management, With. Hands on Improving Python code. * Nornir What is Nornir? A network automation framework, inventories, connection management and parallelization. Nornir architecture and other libraires. Hands on Setting up nornir, nornir fact gathering, nornir tasks. * Optional Writing your own functions, Writing your own classes. pyntc. Hands on Writing reusable code.

ADVANCED PYTHON TRAINING COURSE DESCRIPTION This course caters to network engineers aiming to enhance both their Python proficiency and network automation skills. Delving deeper into key areas such as netmiko, Nornir, and ncclient, we also focus on automating network testing and validation. Participants gain greater confidence working with Python functions, classes, objects, and error handling. The course additionally introduces more libraries like Scrapli, TTP, pyATS, Genie, pybatfish, and Suzieq, which cover parsing strategies, automation testing, validation, network analysis, observability, and telemetry. The curriculum also encompasses concurrency techniques. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Write Python modules and functions. * Evaluate techniques to parse unstructured data. * Use NETCONF filters. * Handle Python errors effectively (try, assert…). * Use postman. * Automate testing and validation of the network. * Use scrapli, Genie, batfish and Suzieq. ADVANCED PYTHON TRAINING COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: Network engineers. * Prerequisites: Python for network engineers * Duration 5 days ADVANCED PYTHON TRAINING COURSE CONTENTS * Review CLI, NETCONF, RESTCONF, structured versus unstructured data, gNMI and when to use which. PEP 8. Naming conventions. Packages, modules, Classes and methods. The scrapli library. Netmiko versus scrapli. Hands on: scrapli, Dictionaries versus Regular Expressions. * Modules and Functions Writing your own modules, containers versus packages, virtual environments. Best practices, calling functions, writing your own functions. Parameters, arguments. Named arguments, dictionaries as arguments. Builtins. Docstrings. Main. __name__, __main__ . Program arguments. Hands on: Getting interfaces, showing interface status using Netmiko and functions. Using dictionaries as arguments. Writing your own modules. * Parsing strategies Turning unstructured data into structured data. textfsm, PyATS Genie parser, NAPALM getters, Template Text Parser. Hands on: Genie parser, TTP. Accessing structured data with lists and dictionaries. * Classes, objects and Python Python classes in Genie, PyEZ and others . Hands on: studying network automation classes, objects, methods and attributes. * Configuration management - more nornir, ncclient, requests Nornir tasks. Nornir results, Nornir functions, Nornir plugins. Nornir processors. YANG, YANG models, pyang. NETCONF hello. Capabilities. Schemas. Filters. Subtrees. XPATH. Exploring available YANG data models. NETCONF and network wide transactions. Asserting NETCONF capabilities. Configuration types. Locking configurations, commits. NETCONF data stores. Netconf-console. RESTCONF differences from NETCONF. URI construction. Postman. More XML and JSON. Git and configuration versions. Hands on: Nornir and Jinja2. Exploring available models, NETCONF filters. Using postman. * Python error handling and debugging Context handlers, try, assert, logging, pdb, pytest, unit testing, chatgpt. Hands on: Writing code with each of the error handling methods, investigating what happens on an error. Use chatgpt to debug your code. * Python Automation Testing Testing and validation. pyATS, Genie. Testbed file. Genie parse, genie learn, genie diff. Genie conf, Genie ops, Genie SDK, Genie harness. Xpresso. Hands on: Using Genie for state comparisons of the network. * Network analysis Batfish, pybatfish, configuration analysis, analysing routing, analysing ACLs. Pandas. Pandas dataframe. Filtering and selecting values of interest. Hands on: Use Batfish to analyse network snapshots, find network adjacencies, flow path analysis. * Network observability Suzieq, using docker, using as a package. Sqpoller, suzieq-gui, suzieq-cli, sq-rest-server. Namespaces and seeing devices, network state and Asserts. Time based analysis, snapshots and changes. Hands on: Suzieq: Gathering data from the network, analysing data from the network. Network state assertion. * Telemetry gRPC, gNMI. CAP, GET, SET. Subscriptions. Model Driven telemetry. Hands on: Analysing telemetry data with Python. * Concurrency asyncio, threads, processes. Nornir concurrency. Scrapli and netmiko concurrency. Hands on: Multiple SSH connections to devices at same time. Scarpli asyncio.

NETWORK MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGIES COURSE DESCRIPTION A comprehensive tour of the available network management technologies available for todays networks. The course starts with basic tools such as syslog along with Python network automation. SNMP is then covered with the *flow technologies and streaming telemetry. Configuration management with ansible, Python, NETCONF and RESTCONF is then studied. The final part of the course looks at SDN. Hands on sessions are used throughout to reinforce the theory rather than teach specific manufacturer equipment. Note that sections are available as individual courses. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Evaluate network management technologies. * Evaluate network management technologies. * Recognise the weaknesses of SNMP versus NETCONF and streaming telemetry. * Explain the role of NETCONF and RESTCONF. * Compare & contrast *flow and streaming telemetry. * Explain the role of SDN in network management. * Automate network configuration with ansible and Python. NETWORK MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGIES COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: Those wishing to manage networks. (Previous Python experience is NOT needed) * Prerequisites: Intro to data comms * Duration 5 days NETWORK MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGIES COURSE CONTENT BASIC NETWORK MANAGEMENT * Network management What is network management? Benefits, issues. FCAPS model. Fault management, Configuration management, accounting, performance, security. What to manage, what not to manage. Managing network devices, managing servers. MONITORING NETWORKS * Traditional network tools Ping..., SSH, syslog, TFTP for configurations. nmap. Wireshark. CLI. Web based management. Splunk. Nessus, snort, Kali. Hands on syslog, network inventories. * Network automation using the CLI Programming and automating networks, netOps. Python, Git. Python network modules, SSH, paramiko, netmiko. EVE-NG. Hands onPython network modules. * Structured versus unstructured data Problems with automation and unstructured data. XML, JSON, YAML. The role of YANG. Hands on Parsing data. * SNMP SNMP architecture, SNMP MIBs, SMI, the SNMP protocol, polling security. Configuring SNMP. SNMPv1, v2, v3, SNMP security. Which version should you use? MIBs and MIB structure. mib-2, extra parts of mib-2, Private enterprise MIBs. Summary: What SNMP is good/bad at. Hands on Configuring agents and a NMS. MIB browsing. * Server management Microsoft, Linux, application polling. WMI vs SNMP. Hands on: Application polling. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT * *flow Polling, push vs pull, netflow, sflow, IPFIX, *flow. Flows. Where to monitor traffic. Comparing *flow with SNMP. Architecture: Generators and collectors. When flows are exported. NetFlow reporting products. SolarWinds. Hands on Netflow configuration. Collectors. * Streaming telemetry Model driven telemetry, periodic/on change. Structured data. Telemetry protocol stack. gRPC and gNMI. Protobuf. gNMI operations. Telemetry architecture. Telegraf, databases, Grafana. Hands on Telemetry example. CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT * Configuration management tools Chef, puppet, ansible, saltstack. Ansible architecture, controlling machines, nodes, agentless, SSH, modules. Inventories, playbooks, modules, network modules, jinja2 templates. Hands on Network configuration with ansible. * NETCONF What is NETCONF? Protocol stack, Data stores, traffic flows, validating configurations, rollback. YANG data models and how YANG is used by NETCONF. XML. Explorers and other tools. Hands on anx, Python and NETCONF. * RESTCONF The REST API, HTTP, What is RESTCONF? Tools including Postman. Comparison with NETCONF. Hands on Configuration with RESTCONF. * Python network automation: configuration SSH issues. Using structured data. Jinja2. ncclient, requests, NAPALM, Nornir. Automated testing. Hands on Python network device configuration with nornir. SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKS AND ORCHESTRATION * Classic SDN What is SDN? benefits. SDN architecture. SDN applications, SDN switches, SDN controllers, Network Operating Systems. Control plane, data plane. Northbound interfaces. SDN components. Southbound interfaces. OpenFlow. ONF, OpenFlow ports, Flow tables. * Network virtualization Virtual networks, virtual switches, NfV. Service chaining. NfV and SDN. * SDN implementations Classic SDN, Hybrid SDN, SDN via APIs, SDN via overlays. Data centre SDN, VXLAN, Service Provider SDN, SD WAN, Enterprise SDN, WiFi. * SDN and open source OpenDaylight, OpenVSwitch, Open Networking Forum, Open Network Operating System. Hands onOpenStack. * SD-WAN What is SD-WAN? Architecture: Edge, gateway, orchestrator, controller. Overlay and underlay. Use of MPLS, 4G/5G. Benefits and features. Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).

DEVOPS TRAINING COURSE DESCRIPTION This course is an introduction to DevOps. The course emphasizes communication, collaboration , integration, and automation to improve the workflow between developers and IT operations professionals. Improved workflows lead to more opportunities to design software and services in a more agile fashion. This course is a basis for discovering the most important DevOps concepts and to understand the principles and methods behind this. The course will leave you with the inspiration to be the advocate of change. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Explain DevOps principles. * Describe the relationship between Agile , Lean and IT Service Management ( ITSM). * Describe methods for automation and technology factors. * Describe considerations when changing. * Describe challenges, risks and critical success factors. DEVOPS TRAINING COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: IT development, IT operations and IT service management. * Prerequisites: Introduction to data communications & networking. * Duration 2 days DEVOPS TRAINING COURSE CONTENTS * Why DevOps? Introduction DevOps Goals DevOps Added value of DevOps Proven Results DevOps for businesses DevOps principles (The Three Ways) * DevOps and other frameworks DevOps and Agile DevOps and Lean DevOps and IT Service Management * DevOps culture Characteristics of a DevOps culture Organizational Considerations DevOps DevOps stakeholders DevOps roles DevOps teams DevOps organizational structures * DevOps methods Continuous Integration Continuous delivery Continuous deployment Value stream mapping Kanban Theory of Constraints Improvement Kata Deming's quality circle ITSM processes DevOps and Automation * Methods for DevOps automation Longevity and tools categories DevOps applications Transitioning to a DevOps culture. * Implementation Challenges, risks and critical success factors Measuring DevOps successes

JENKINS TRAINING COURSE DESCRIPTION An introduction to Continuous Integration and development (CI/CD) in network automation using Jenkins. The course focusses specifically on the network Devops case of using Jenkins. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Explain how Jenkins can help with network automation. * Configure Jenkins for network Devops. * Use Jenkins for network automation. JENKINS TRAINING COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: Network engineers. * Prerequisites: TCP/IP Foundation * Duration 1 day JENKINS TRAINING COURSE CONTENTS * What is Jenkins? DevOps, CI/CD, version control systems, git, automating execution of tasks, Jenkins job, Jenkins pipeline, Jenkins plugins, CI server. Hands on Installing Jenkins. * Example pipeline for network automation YAML, GitHub, Jenkins, ansible, network devices. Hands on Investigating a workflow: Auto deploying network configurations. * Configuring Jenkins Code repository, build triggers, gerrit and reviews, build environment. A Jenkins job, build step, post build actions, running a Jenkins job, build log, home directory. Hands on Configuring Jenkins. * CI using Jenkins Branches, pipeline, git, the git plugin. Hands on A Jenkins job to poll, build and unit test network configurations.

DATA CENTRE INFRASTRUCTURE COURSE DESCRIPTION This course provides a foundation in data centre infrastructure technologies. It begins with a tour of virtualisation and the impact of this on the network before moving on to the spine and leaf design, how it works and how to scale. Layer 2 technologies enabling this architecture are studied in terms of the impact on the data centre. The course then progresses onto how Layer 3 technologies such as BGP, EVPN and VXLAN are used in data centre networks. The course then studies interconnecting data centres finishing with a section on automation and orchestration of both underlay and overlay networks. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Explain the spine and leaf architecture * Recognise the impact of virtualisation, containers and orchestration on the network * Describe how the following technologies are used in data centres: Multi port aggregation Overlay networks MBGP, VRFs, EVPN VXLAN COOP DATA CENTRE INFRASTRUCTURE COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: Staff involved with Data centres. * Prerequisites: Network fundamentals for engineers * Duration 2 days DATA CENTRE INFRASTRUCTURE COURSE CONTENTS What is Ethernet? Data centres versus enterprise networks. Servers, Blades, Racks, Clusters, Storage, Virtual Machines, Hosts, guests, containers, orchestration. Virtual switches. Distributed switches. Live migrations (e.g. vMotion). IP addressing and VM traffic. Data centre network architecture Spine leaf design. North south traffic, East West traffic, Scaling: Ports, bandwidth. N+1 redundancy, ratio East West optimisation, oversubscription. 2 tier versus 3 tier Leaf/Spine. Pods. Underlay, Overlay L2 technologies STP vs link aggregation vs multi link aggregation. LACP, LLDP, CDP. Scalability. VLANs and VLAN pruning. L2 design recommendations. Disabling STP on edge ports. L3 technologies Underlay, Overlay, VXLAN, VTEP, VXLAN overlay forwarding, EVPN, IS-IS, COOP, MP BGP, VRFs, EBGP, IBGP, AS numbers, route reflectors. Anycast gateways. MTU considerations-for data and control planes. BUM traffic. Data centre interconnects Pods, fabrics, multi pods, multi fabric, multi site. VXLAN with BGP/EVPN Data center interconnect. Cloud integration, Inter Site Networks. Automation Automation and orchestration, Zero touch provisioning, Devops, Netops, telemetry automated configuration for underlay and overlay, SDN.

ANSIBLE FOR ENGINEERS TRAINING COURSE DESCRIPTION An introduction to automation using ansible. Ansible is a general purpose IT automation platform that can be use for a number of purposes. The course covers configuration management, cloud provisioning and application deployment with ansible. Hands on sessions follow all major sections. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN * Install ansible. * Automate tasks with ansible. * Write ansible playbooks. ANSIBLE FOR ENGINEERS TRAINING COURSE DETAILS * Who will benefit: Administrators and developers automating tasks. * Prerequisites: Linux administration skills * Duration 3 days ANSIBLE FOR ENGINEERS TRAINING COURSE CONTENTS * What is ansible? The language, the engine, the framework. Uses of ansible, orchestration. Hands on Installing ansible. * Ansible architecture ible architecture Controlling machines, nodes, Agentless, SSH, modules, JSON protocol. Configuration management, inventories, playbooks, modules, roles. Hands on Getting started, running ad hoc commands. * Ansible and Vagrant Prototyping and testing. Hands on Using ansible with Vagrant. * Ad hoc commands Parallelism, shell commands, managing files and directories, file transfer, package management, manage user and groups, deploying applications, service management, background jobs, checking log files, managing cron jobs. Hands on Using ansible with Vagrant. * Playbooks ansible-playbook, users, sudo, YAML, plays, tasks, handlers, modules. Hands on Running playbooks. * More playbooks Handlers, variables, environmental variables, playbook variables, inventory variables, variable scope and precedence, accessing variables, facts, ansible vault. Conditionals, wait_for. Hands on Using variables and conditions in playbooks. * Roles and includes Dynamic includes, Handler includes, playbook includes. Roles, role parts: handlers, files, templates, cross platform roles, ansible galaxy. Hands on includes example, building roles. * Inventories /etc/ansible/hosts, inventory variables, static inventories, dynamic inventories. Hands on Inventories and variables. * Miscellanea Individual server cookbooks, Main playbook for configuring all servers. Hands onPlaybooks.